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Comment by traviswingo | Hacker News Reader

You're making the hard assumption that, by distributing a UBI, people will just sit around and do nothing. There is no data to back this statement up, and it's very likely that people will actually work more while on UBI. UBI is designed to provide _choice_ for workers, not force them to do something they don't want to do.

For all we know, UBI could lead to solving some of the worlds biggest problems by giving people, who otherwise wouldn't be able to, the freedom to solve problems they're interested in, not just work some dead end job to barely make ends meet. You'd be surprised at how much better humans are at doing things when they actually like doing them.

Let's let the studies roll out before making assumptions. I do, however, believe these studies are much too removed from reality to prove much of anything. The dataset is much too small and 36 months isn't a great deal of time. We will see.

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I don't think there's any data to prove that they wouldn't?

Honestly what's more likely to happen is, the people who have always been self motivated to drive themselves towards goals will still succeed, the ones who would be pretty happy just playing video games and getting stoned/drunk will have an easier way of doing just that.

And where exactly is the problem with that?

Exactly! Sounds pretty good if everybody gets to do what makes them personally happy..

Who pays for this going forward? (Right now it says it is driven by donations). So there is a group of people motivated to succeed and work towards it and pay taxes to allow a bunch of people to do what they like to do (getting stoned and playing video games)

What is the problem when you reward people for not contributing anything?

I wouldn't see that as rewarding someone, but rather meeting their basic needs. Like Germany already does with health care and unemployment benefits, but doing away with the bureaucratic hassles and penalties, and increasing the money to an actual liveable amount.

For me it's a question about how we want to transform society in the long term, I don't think UBI for all will come next year.

I'd give back the following question: why are we rewarding people currently for doing mind-numbing bullshit jobs?

That makes no sense. You can meet people's basic needs without giving them money. This how soup kitchens, orphanages, and other shelters function - your basic survival needs are met and you can focus on improving your comfort. Money just lets you do the latter much easier, it has no impact on the former.

"I'd give back the following question: why are we rewarding people currently for doing mind-numbing bullshit jobs?"

What the hell does that mean? Nearly everyone's individual work is useless. A fry cook is useless in isolation, a pencil pusher is useless in isolation, even a programmer is useless in isolation. You do not get paid to do work, you get paid to produce value, hence why people can get fired even if they deliver a lot of low quality work. The work you do is useless in isolation, it is the combination of everyone else's work and the system itself that makes certain work valuable. This is why socialist fantasies like UBIs will only ever work if you have a slave force doing the work that needs to be done. The idea that John Doe's individual ability to slap car parts together somehow makes him valuable is what you get wrong. It's John's ability to exchange his ability to fix people's cars that produces value - in other words, John's ability to start a business and exchange work that he knows how to do for other goods and services. The demand and supply of John's ability and the cars that need fixing, provide John's pool of wealth. If Jane knows how to fix cars too, you don't just suddenly start giving her money for doing nothing, just knowing how to fix cars has no value by itself. I don't see why this is so hard to fathom why this UBI will obviously fail unless Germany has an AI work force it's been hiding under its sleeves this entire time. Someone has to do the productive work, and this will only result in musical chairs where no one wants to be the last one with a job. This system rewards people for not doing work, and unless they have a way of filling that gap, at best this will amount to a bunch of already priveleged individuals being paid to just exist, and at worst, those who are late to the party will be forced to fill that gap.

I was referring to this argument: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

Again, I don't think that UBI is feasible as something dropped in this year or the next. But a concept we have to think about for transforming society in the next decades.

Average productivity is going up constantly, and I think it will not be required for everyone to work 40h a week in 20-30 years. Whether that means some people won't work at all while others work fully, or whether everybody works 25h a week is one point that could be debated. But even if you're passionate about the topic, please stay civil!

One more point to consider: even if I'm being fed by a soup kitchen and have a shelter I can go to in winter (which I have to leave every morning), this may not be a decent life. So you are correct in that those people probably won't die, but this not what I meant. Obviously there are many layers to the thing (pyramid and all), let's say I'd see the basic needs as having a place to live for your own with a fridge in it, and enough money so that if the fridge breaks you can replace it without a problem. My (socialistic fantasy?) belief it, that everybody in society should be able to do so, and I still don't necessarily see that as rewarding people.

Look at the middle east, countries like Saudi, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar have done it for decades. Using your logic they should be ruling the world. Instead it has created a dependent population, unwilling to work and needing an army of immigrants to do the work at horrible conditions.

> Look at the middle east, countries like Saudi, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar have done it for decades.

False, according the the World Bank : “Currently, no country has a UBI in place, although there have been (and still are) several small-scale pilots and a few larger-scale experiences. Only two countries—Mongolia and the Islamic Republic of Iran—had a national UBI in place for a short period of time.“

https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/socialprotection/publicat...

that is false, living in the Middle East and know whats up

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen%27s_Account_Program_(S... https://basicincome.org/news/2011/05/kuwait-a-temporary-part...

Thanks for those links. It got me reading more to deepen my understanding.

I should say that my intent is not to invalidate your living experience, but rather to learn more.

Here’s what I’ve found so far:

Saudi Arabia

- dependence on foreign labor (since you claimed UBI is the cause): “ In answer to the question of why the Saudi economy is so dependent on foreign labor, the UN Arab Human Development Report blamed stunted social and economic development inhibited by lack of personal freedom, poor education and government hiring based on factors other than merit, and exclusion of women.” See “Challenges” section in https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Saudi_Arabia

- Reminded myself again that Saudi Arabia was a subsistence economy until the early 1930s, before their oil-based economy started.

- learned about the difficulties and the strategies (incl. the Citizens Account Program you linked to) to reduce dependency on oil reserves.

- Learned that the Citizens Account Program was introduced in 2017, so claims to its effect prior to that seems incorrect, unless there was some prior form of it.

Kuwait

The article you linked to describes a temporary program that ended 7 years ago.

I did find other articles that talk about work incentives (e.g. https://www.wellesley.edu/albright/about/blog/3926-downsides...) but haven’t digested and critically evaluated to draw a confident conclusion.

Overall observation

Your opening assertion (“ countries like Saudi, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar have done it for decades.”) doesn’t appear to be a fair appraisal.

No worries, as you can imagine getting information about the programs in these countries at times can be tough :)

In general, being a citizen of a Gulf Cooperation Council gives you the following 1) Free healthcare 2) Free education including study abroad 3) Stipend monthly 4) Free electricity and water Other countries may have more or a little less. Like qataris get an allocation of land if they marry another citizen.

The general qatari population is 15% while immigrant population is 85%.

They might have different names for it or its obfuscated but a form of UBI has been going on for decades, since I have friends who are nationals and ive been here for 30+ years. The information might not be freely available.

Here is a page from the archive about Qatar https://web.archive.org/web/20150430001945/https://portal.ww... . It is no longer live, but they mention an adequate income

I find it interesting that even after a worldwide pandemic has proved that the majority of humans will prefer to act selfishly to maintain their own comfort level, you still somehow hold out hope that given literally free money, that the majority wouldn't also use this money selfishly to maintain their comfort level.

> find it interesting that even after a worldwide pandemic has proved that the majority of humans will prefer to act selfishly to maintain their own comfort level

Has that been proven?

The majority of humans are indeed acting selfishly to maintain their own comfort level, yes. You can argue that they aren't, in which case I'd like to see the indication that either A) the majority of people are acting in the interest of others when they go about their daily business spreading the illness, or B) the majority of people are not preferring to maintain their comfort level.

It is proven for me as I can see both A and B are false.

Having purpose and fulfillment is self-serving. Most people would find it depressing to sit around and do nothing.

So I should somehow believe that regular people, most of whom already have an excess of money after you deduct necessary survival expenses, will suddenly become artists and creators when given just a bit more money? This thread is laughable, and shows just how little semblance any opinions here have with reality

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